While body transformations in Hollywood are nothing new, what Chris Pratt did in 6 months to prepare for his role in Guardians of the Galaxy is pretty amazing.

Chris went from looking fat and sloppy to sporting a lean and chiseled physique. So a lot of guys are probably wondering how they can duplicate Pratt’s results.

Getting a ripped body like Chris Pratt isn’t rocket science.

It’s just a matter of eating healthy and training hard.

But there’s so much BS out there when it comes to getting a Hollywood physique, so here are 8 ‘secrets’ for getting a ripped body like Chris Pratt.

1) Set a damn deadline

As Chris said in his interview below, “…if you just bust your ass and get after it all it takes is about 6 months really. ”

I’m not saying it’ll take 6 months to have a body like Chris Pratt, it could take more, it could take less. Everyone’s begins at a different starting point. Deadlines are extremely powerful for reaching goals.

6 months is a damn good timeline to see amazing results. So set the deadline and don’t give up until you reach the end of the 6 months. Yes, I know you probably don’t have a 7-figure, multi-picture Marvel deal in the pipeline, but you have to motivate yourself somehow.

2) Lift heavy even when losing weight

Too many people make the mistake of switching from building muscle and lifting heavy to lifting 5 pound pink dumbbells for 50 reps once they start trying to lose weight.

DON’T DO THIS.

Maintaining your strength should be your #1 priority when trying to lose weight and it’s the #1 rule I teach in my program SX12.

What do you think happens when you switch from pushing 100 pound dumbbells to 10 pound lady weights? That’s right, you lose strength, lose muscle, and look like shit.

I’m not saying you need to max out on every set, but the weight needs to be challenging.

3) Don’t think extreme dieting will make you get ripped faster

Yes, there’s a time and place for extreme bouts of dieting, but in general cutting down to 500 calories per day in hopes to getting ripped faster won’t work.

If you cut your calories down too fast, you risk the chance of losing muscle, screwing up your metabolism, and losing strength in the gym.

It’s much better to play the long game – aim to only lose about 1-2 pounds per week. As you get closer to your goal weight, you should only aim to lose about 1 pound per week.

4) Bulking doesn’t mean stuffing your face every day

When guys want to bulk up, they think they need to eat a lot more food and protein. And this is generally true.

But where most guys get it wrong is that they always overdo it and eat much more than needed.

Look, you probably don’t need to eat 5000 calories per day to gain weight. For those starting out, I would use the following formula:

You can make incremental adjustments by adding 200 calories per week if you aren’t seeing results.

5) You can still drink beer and get ripped

Chris Pratt gave up beer in his diet, but that doesn’t mean you have to too.

1-2 beers won’t kill you, just like eating a hamburger or a slice of pizza won’t completely derail you diet. It’s all about sticking with your diet 80% of the time. So don’t freak out if you eat more ‘unhealthy’ foods every now and then.

Because if you don’t enjoy your diet, then I guarantee you won’t stick with it in the long run.

6) You can get ripped abs without doing a single crunch

In Guardians of the Galaxy, Chris Pratt has very visible and sharp abs. This is due to having a low body fat percentage, but it’s also due to having very well developed ab muscles.

So how do you get abs that looks like that?

Well you could do 1000 crunches per day and hope for the best, but that’s boring and bad for your back.

Another way to get a great set of abs without doing a single crunch is by getting stronger and really focusing on contracting your abs during exercises.

For example, when doing the squat or bent over barbell row (or any movement done standing up), you really need to contract your abs hard if you want to use perfect form. If you don’t brace your abs during these exercises, your form gets all messed up and you won’t be able to use as much weight as possible.

And the more weight you use, the harder you’ll need to contract your abs, which translates to stronger and better looking abs. So as long as you’re getting stronger on exercises that involve your abs, you will have great looking abs with doing any ‘ab’ exercises.

8) Train for your goal (you aren’t a power lifter)

Power lifters train to get strong as fuck at a handful of exercises. They don’t care about how they look or how fat they get, they only want to get really strong.

Bodybuilders train to get as big and lean as humanly possible with or without drugs.

If you’re training to look like Chris Pratt, then I’m guessing you’re training mainly for aesthetics and want a lean and muscular body that isn’t too overly muscular like a bodybuilder.

If this is you, then you need to focus on building muscle smartly. Don’t keep focusing on getting huge legs if you don’t want huge legs. If you want a more aesthetic look, then focus on broadening your shoulder by adding more side lateral raises to your routine.

And if you’re really determined to getting that lean aesthetic Chris Pratt look (I hope you are), I recommend checking out Superhero Shredding, my full-blown course on how to build a body like Chris Pratt without extreme workouts and ridiculously restrictive diets.

How do you guys plan on getting a body like Chris Pratt? Let me know in the comments.

This is an awesome article and I dont believe it shows ay “unrealistic” results or expectations. Depending on starting point this may be very attainable in 6 months. Best advice I can give only because i finally learned it myself was count your calories. I never believed it would make such a difference. It forces you to evaluate every nutritional choice you make and attempt to justify it. I am down 15 lbs and no where near done. I have also incorp regimented cardio 3 times a week now (C25K app if anyone is interested) and just a jog on the other days and I feel great. Good luck to anyone else who also cinsiders themself a “Starlordintraining” as I do

I agree in part with counting calories, I hate doing it, but I did it for the first month so I that I could figure out proportions and how much I generally need to hit my goals, but whatever works, this is great practical advice. Again, have fun with it at the end of the day, and know that it takes time, but once you hit your goal, of getting in shape, getting fit is a whole ‘nother animal. Good luck to all!

Hey Keith,
I’m just starting back into working out. I am 32, 240 lbs, and have very little time to hit the gym with kids and family obligations. Any at home workout routines to get me started? Also, I’m having trouble finding a diet plan. Any pointers? Thank you.

I would recommend Focus T25. 25 minutes a day of nice intense workout. They even have the modifier person in the videos for people that can’t keep up early in the game. In addition to the exercises, they have a whole diet plan that you can try.

Mac I would invest in some home equipment. Nothing serious or space consuming. You can get a weight set from Walmart that allows you to bench, workout legs, abs and shoulders for around $120. That may be a high price but if you think of the cost that a gym membership accumulates, with gas added it, is a cheaper alternative.

Good for him, and the advice is solid, but much more impressed by transformations of everyday people than celebrities. Imagine someone came to you and said. “you have six months to get in the best shape of your life. It is now basically your full-time job.. You have unlimited time and financial resources for trainers, equipment, and nutritional supplements.” How hard would it be?

It should be noted that he didn’t just go from fat to fit in 6 months. He got fit again, having previously (and recently) being in great shape. He was really fit in 2012, and then packed the weight on for a movie role. He has a history of being in good shape, and it’s unrealistic to think that someone without this background should be able to get that fit as quickly.

Damn I know this is late, but your math is not far off. Original guy did 4 weeks equals a month. He shorted you. 4 weeks per month at 6 months would be 24 weeks. Times 2 would be 48 lbs. But half a year is 26 weeks. I.e. 52 weeks divided by 2. So at 2 lbs you could realistically lose 52 lbs. If you rock out 3 lbs a week for the first 8 weeks yore l you’re at 60 in 6 months. If you need to lose 60 lbs, 24 lbs in the first 8 weeks is more than safe. Again, sorry about the late reply. ..lol.

I love how these sites have the title and main topic of “How Chris Pratt lost 60 pounds in 4 to 6 months” (some article about Chris say he had 4 months some say he had 6) and they claim that you can also lose 60 pounds in just 16 to 24 weeks….But then they always tell you to only lose 1 or 2 pounds per week…Hey do the math, losing 1 to 2 pounds per week will not add up to 60 pounds lost in 4 to 6 months…MANY celebs and even regular people that eat healthy, keep their calories low but not starving and have the time to put in the workout 6 days a week have all lost around this much weight in the same time frame which just goes to prove that the human body CAN lose more than 2 pounds per week, safely and healthy if done the RIGHT WAY. I hate the 2 pound per week max rule because not only is it BS but it also makes people that lose more than 2 pounds per week think that they are doing something BAD to themselves when really if they are doing things the right way, may actually just be getting amazing results…Bottom line, if you keep your calories and protein intake at a manageable level and you are not losing a lot of muscle mass and strength than you may be able to lose more weight than 2 pounds per week, especially if you have a higher body fat percentage when you are starting out. If you are already lean than it will be SUPER hard to lose any more than that but the blanket statement of 1 to 2 pounds per week and anything more is unhealthy is a BS statement that I wish people would stop throwing out there at people.

Hey I’m just reporting on what chris pratt said. It’s all dependent on your STARTING weigh. If you are heavier you can lose more than 2 pounds per week. Otherwise, as you get closer to your goal weight, weight loss will begin to crawl to 2, 1, or even 1/2 pound per week.

I would like to get big. Obviously. I haven’t been to a gym in about two years. I’m 17 and skinny. I’ve done pull-ups and push-ups everyday for a few weeks. I know that’s not much so I’m not surprised that I’m still skinny. I’m also aware that anything I do will have a positive impact on me, but I was wondering if you think that doing the three day Chris Pratt workout along with the Brad Pitt workout done once a week will help? Or is that just overkill?

Chris Pratt was seriously obese when he started working out and get that physique, so I’ll assume that this article is oriented for Obese people.

Then I’ll say something that could save other people from the same mistake I made : Obese people, listen to me and don’t base your fat losing plan on musculation or bodybuilding.

The truth is that only a few people on the world (specialized doctors mostly) knows and understand how different the phenomenon of fat loosing is for a “life-long” obese and a fat person who want to cut some pounds. There is different type of fat, different level of fat, different mechanisms, all different for an obese person and a”just-a-little-fat” person.

What I want to share is my experience. I’ve been there, I’ve done that. I’ve based my cutting fat plan on bodybuilding and powerlifting for years, as many site like this one advices. What could work for others didn’t work for me, and surely won’t work for other people like me.
I have a perfect genetic for gaining mass, being muscular mass or fat mass, so following this plan have make me gain a lot, a very lot of muscle, but never truly make me lose a big amount of fat.

I’ve read a lot about new cardio exercice, like the HIIT, and / or basing your fat loss on bodybuilding. Truth is, those work-out were created and are usefull for already athletic people and / or people with just a little amount of fat to lose. Those method are based on the augmentation of the basal metabolism, and are unable to target and destroy the life-long fat of an obese person.

So what should people like me do ? It’s simple, the good ol’ method : long, very long low to medium intensity cardio work out like sport walking (not running !), swimming, gym bike, boxing, martial arts, etc. Facts are here, researches demonstrate it : it’s the only kind of work out that can target and eliminate the particular fat of an obese man.

I didn’t wanted to see it too at first. I was convinced that method like HIIT or bodybuilding fat losing method, as presented in article like this or in books like Muscle & Fitness, were the best to go. Maybe they are for some, but not for me. Then I read articles on fat losing and understood how different my body is. I got rid of the previous method and base my work out on lots of long cardio sessions. Then, for the first time in like 4 or 5 year, I was able to lose around 30 pound in 3 month without losing any muscle size.

So, if some obese people come around here looking for a solution, I strongly advice to read and educate yourself on how cardio work out target fat, and motivate yourself to go for long session of low to medium intensity cardio work out. It’s interesting to note that this is the method Chris Pratt used for this weight loss as documented by other website : he based his work out on swimming, running, boxing, kickboxing, etc. Not on powerlifting or hard bodybuilding.

Actually no, Bodybuilders are far from loosing weight the same way as an overweight person. Bodybuilders are athletic, their body is capable to greatly increase their basal metabolisme due to experience and training for example, and thus lose weight not only due to a calorie deficit.

After that, there’s many differents mechanismes to lose fat, the two most common are fat consumption and fat oxydation. Fat consumption is when, as you describe, there’s a deficit in calorie and the body will consume fat by transforming it to carbohydrates and burn it for more energy. Problem is that the body is more likely to consume glycogene over fat in this mode, reducing overall efficiency.
The other one is fat oxydation where the body will oxydate, thus burn, fat to create energy instantly. And there’s more.
So no, there’s not just only one way to lose fat as you said, let’s tell the truth here.

HIIT, cardio/musculation and others method are based on calorie deficit to lose weight, but what trainers mostly don’t know, as opposite to scientist, is how performant the body of an obese person is to keep its fat.

Fat is kept into tissue. To simplify, lets say that at birth, a person will have “one room” to keep fat in his tissue. So this room get fill by fat and then lose it following the lifestyle of the person. But thing is, when the room is overloeaded by fat, the body will create a “new room” in the tissue to keep even more fat. And you CAN’T lose this new room, no matter what you do. It’s impossible. The room just get empty, but never disappears..

And that’s not all. The problem is, the more you have rooms, the easier you get fat, because the body have plenty space to keep fat and thus make hell of a stock each time he can.
Even more, the further you go in the level of the “rooms”, the harder it gets to actually consume that fat.

So training method like HIIT are based on increasing the volume and intensity in order to create a calorie deficit are more likely to never achieve the furthest rooms and more likely to consume glycogene instead fat, unless the guy is basically making him starve.

And here comes the second method to lose weight (which can totaly be combined to the previous one) which is fat oxydation. Fat oxydation IS different from calorie deficit. Fat oxydation happens when you do a cardio workout at 60-70% of your maximum intensity, and for at least 1h. The lower, the longer, the better. You can find many articles describing the phenomenon and the best way to do it, so I won’t explain it more.

But fat oxydation is THE BEST method to reach the furthest rooms and destroying the most stubborn fat. Fat oxydation doesn’t rely on a calorie deficit, so you overcomes the problem of obeses people’s body being so much efficient at keeping fat.

That’s why, I say it again, low / medium intensity cardio workout is far more eficient for obese people than HIIT or else cardio workout. The human body works in mysterious ways even now, and the scientists are far from having describing it all. Human body doesn’t lose fat in only one way, but there’s plenty of differents mechanisms in work.

– And actually a calory deficit will be a far less efficient way to lose fat for the obese person than for the bodybuilder, due to the metabolics specificities I explained before.

So yes, the calories deficit will work, but the ration “effort needed / results” will be incredibly high for an obese person. Been there, done that. While actually focusing on fat oxydation instead of calorie deficit, while still reduce the calorie intaque, will be much more efficient.

That’s my point. Saying to a dude that have a few pound to cut to try HIIT or to do weightlifting while creating a calorie deficit is perfectly fine. But those method aren’t suited for an obese person. Good old long cardio session at low / medium intensity is what works the best, and obese people need to know that to avoid falling in the same trap I felt in.

If you get 95% of your calorie from proteins and 5 % from carbohydrates, you’ll have few to none fat intaque, even if you match you calorie balance. And if you trigger fat oxydation through exercice, even without a calorie deficit you can still lose fat.

But well, I’m not here to debate scientific facts with people won’t know / believe them. My hopes were that an obese person would see my comment and that it makes him work out the right way. To go back to the subject of the article, Chris Pratt have documented the work out he used for that transformation, and it was based only on long cardio sessions. So that’s pretty clear that even him coach aggreed with me. After that, everybody is free to do whatever he want.

Well, running, swimming, boxing, kickboxing, etc, are all aerobic based activities, and thus are what we call “cardio” workout. Even the P90X is mainly an aerobic training, as opposed to powerlifting for example.. When I was speaking of cardio training session, I was speaking of that kind of activities.

Depends on how you practice it. If you’re training for the nationnal championship, sure. If you’re training it with a coach like Chris Pratt to specifically stay in a medium intensity in order to lose weight, then it’s a long session of medium intensity cardio.

I aggree for the P90X though, I’m not familiar with all those new training methods, I always prefered old school working out.

you’re an idiot. Calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight. Have you ever tried it? I’m not talking about estimating portions or cutting out carbs or bullshit like that. Have you tried actually mathematically counting and adding up everything you eat?? Do it using myfitnesspal and I guarantee you will lose weight.